The Wordless Mage
Chapter 33: Between Slayer And Savior

Chapter 33: Between Slayer And Savior

"What do you mean," the man standing by the king asked, his face shining through the small opening in his robe, "what’s different about this attack that you can’t defend against?"

It was the pope, holding the same staff that he kept alongside him in the carriage ride.

"Look, feel for the ambient energy. Don’t you notice something amiss," Corien asked, pointing to the area surrounding the ball of energy.

To everyone else, it just seemed to be the same destruction as before--space-rending as it was, but Corien could tell.

And it made his skin crawl.

"This time, it’s different. Before, he’d used a combination of Ryudo and Nendo to produce the gravity-defying effects that he held, but he’s accumulating something within his palms that I’m not sure I could even call ’energy.’"

Corien prompted everybody else to observe the blast one more time, this time guiding them to the aether surrounding it.

"What..." Lucien questioned, stepping back.

"So, you see it hero?"

Corien turned back to them, watching as understanding flustered their appearances one-by-one.

"It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen," Kaia added, fear creeping into her eyes, "th-the aether... it’s pushing back against it!"

She fell onto her back after her cry, wriggling backwards as if she were making any significant progression.

"Yes, it’s as you say. The very Way rejects the energy he’s accumulating. It’s fighting back, hoping that its existence will halt, to dispel whatever dangers awaits."

Corien closed his eyes, looking down for a moment.

"You can stop him, can’t you, Corien," the king asked, shaking his shoulders.

"No, I can tell, my Ryudo will have little effect on something outside the very laws governing this world. I’m not sure what effects I will incur if I try to stop his attack before he does it--whether the blast will explode on impact."

He shuddered at the prospect of sitting still, helpless, his hands trembling along the hilt of his blade.

"What I will ensure is that you guys won’t get caught in the crossfire."

The rubble below ruffled at his gait, the tip of his blade poised against Rowan. Slowly, he made his way to the edge of the crater, whatever action he was to take pivotal to everyone’s survival.

"Wait!"

Liora called out for Corien, her hand stretched to hold him by the shoulder.

"You’re not going to kill Rowan, right?"

Corien’s face laid still, the dark in his pupils dilating slightly to her words.

Without so much as a single utterance, he turned, gripping onto his blade even tighter than before. His hands began to drop by just a few millimeters, the weight of the sword growing with each surge Rowan’s accumulating blast took.

It was communicating with Rowan, growing heavier with each new increase in his power output.

"No, I won’t let you," Liora yelled, pulling her arm back from Corien in a desperate attempt to halt his movements, although the best it did was cause her to hit herself square in the jaw, the inertia carrying like somebody trying to tug onto a wall.

Corien stopped for a moment, thinking about her words, then continued again, resolve steeling his nerves.

"Wait," Liora cried again, real tears welling in her eyes, "please stop!"

Without any pause, Corien slid down into the crater, now raising the blade to his chest.

"I told you to stop!"

Liora’s cry was now a shrill, her emotion bleeding so heavily into the air that everything around her turned blue. Everybody was frozen, the only person unaffected Corien himself.

"What..." she muttered, looking around where everyone stood.

She felt a strain in her begin to tug on her chest, just breathing becoming a struggle.

It didn’t feel as if she could move, but seeing the way Corien’s head switched from place to place with wide-eyed panic, she wasted no time in jumping down to meet him.

"Is this your work," he asked, withdrawing his blade once she’d gotten close, "halting the flow of time?"

She didn’t know what to say. Not because she couldn’t think of any response, but because it was incredibly painful for her to maintain the veil keeping Corien from assailing Rowan.

It felt as if her chest had been reliving a constant muscle spasm, twisting and churning around her ribcage to constrict her airflow and stab into her bone.

Yet, she didn’t falter.

"I don’t know, and I honestly don’t know. What I do understand is that you absolutely can’t kill Rowan, or I swear it on whichever gods you worship that I will end my life here and now!"

Corien didn’t answer, only looking down at his sheathed blade and back up at Rowan.

"Even if I didn’t want to kill the boy, there is still the remaining threat that that ball of energy has. You may not know this because you are new to this world, but stopping arcana while it’s developing can sometimes be even worse than the final attack. If a blast like that were to go off indiscriminately, imagine the destruction that would ensue. That, there, is an attack capable of resisting the Way itself, it mustn’t be underestimated."

"I understand, but I still simply cannot allow it."

She was pained--not only at the idea that Rowan would die--although it was equally painful--but also that she was utterly helpless in everything.

"Why do you care for the boy so," Corien asked, gripping his hilt again one final time.

Liora didn’t respond, although she’d already know her answer. It was something that only she could’ve known and a reason that Rowan had long forgotten, the secret one that she felt she’d have to keep.

Corien smiled at the light grin in her face, turning back to Rowan.

"I have no clue how you’re holding this for so long, but there’s just about one option left."

Turning to look directly into her eyes, he equipped his blade, running his finger along its dull side.

"This, here, is Excalibur, a blade tailored only for the greatest warriors. The general understanding of this sword’s ability is that it can read its opponents heart and strength and derive their worthiness, its weight growing or shrinking with each passing assessment it makes. That is how it has amassed its legend, but there’s one more functionality within it that only its wielders could ever know."

He looked into her eyes with even greater care, getting a sense of her resolve.

"It allows for the individual to enter the heart of the persecuted, granting them one single chance of redemption. It is a utility extendable to those around the wielder, and can be practiced against all who don’t resist its effects."

She only nodded in response, looking back towards Rowan’s frozen state. The pain was beginning to become excruciating, its effects only hidden within the gallons of adrenaline pumping in her veins.

"What’s the drawback," she asked, tightening her fists to burn away the anxiety filling her soul.

"Eternity trapped in the mind of another," he responded, pulling the blade in front of her back to his hip.